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Government

Submission + - Can open source save democracy?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Political discussions frequently conclude that democracy is at best a symbol. It is widely understood that lawmakers and politicians generally serve special interests more than they serve the people. This is no secret: everyone knows about lobbyists, campaign contributions, kickbacks, pork, earmarks, and the classic "smoke filled room" where political deals are made in secret. All of these problems can be summed up in the simple phrase, "power corrupts," and empowered individuals are a necessary component of representation-style democracy. We have never had another means of instituting democracy as a broad and general system of governance because it has simply been impractical. But social internet tools change everything. There are now scores of projects building creative and diverse systems meant to apply the principles of open source to the procedures of lawmaking. Can we eventually create real democracy, instead of the cheap imitations we have had to date? Or will we forever be reliant on empowered leaders to guide and protect us?
Apple

Submission + - Apple Debates Open, Linux Gets Best of Both Worlds

Submitted by jennifercloer
jennifercloer writes: Let’s face it — Steve Jobs and Apple have shown that blending software and hardware together in an elegant way can produce amazing results. Apple calls this their “integrated approach” and uses that to criticize the “open approach.” Our response is to help the Linux community have the best of both worlds with tools that allow anyone to take “open software” and create a custom “integrated experience” quickly. And while I can’t predict what the next iPhone or breakthrough consumer device will be, I do know that if the community comes together and develops tools that make it easier to create that device using upstream open source components, then what we’re announcing today will have have been successful — and so will Linux.
Security

Submission + - BA boss slams US airport security (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The chairman of British Airways has said some "completely redundant" airport security checks should be scrapped and the UK should stop "kowtowing" to US security demands.

Practices such as forcing passengers to take off their shoes should be abandoned, Martin Broughton said.

And he questioned why laptop computers needed to be screened separately.

"We all know there's quite a number of elements in the security programme which are completely redundant and they should be sorted out."

Colin Matthews, chief executive of BAA, said security at Heathrow and its other airports was "defined by the authorities" and consisted of "one requirement laid on top of another".

He added: "There's European requirements, there's UK requirements, and... US requirements laid on top of that.

"We could certainly do a better job for customers if we could rationalise all of that into a single, coherent process, and I'd love to have the chance to do that."

Comment The presentation: well hidden (Score 2, Informative) 75

by GeneralSunTzu (#32630540) Attached to: Turning Attackers' Tools Against Them
This is to save the energies of the various suckers, who, like me, wanted to read either the presentation (will do even Powerpoint, if really really desperate) or the notes or whatever he had.
These conferences, unlike BlackHat® conferences, seem to publish zilch, and on his company web site there is nothing, in any language, except for a news item in Inspector Clouseau's English (Pink Panther, remember?) on this same matter, hardly more informative that the OP comment.
To shake him, please e-mail him in any language, asking him to publish his presentation.
I am confident that by the 3.000.000th e-mail, he might get it...
Am going to mail him in idiomatic, begging, French to begin with.

Comment Let's see how locked down Maemo is, then (Score 2, Interesting) 307

by GeneralSunTzu (#29324323) Attached to: Nokia Fears Carriers May Try To Undermine N900
All right, let us defer our match to how easy it will be to customize the Maemo platform. From what I have read (Wikipedia), Maemo is a Debian distro with a number of proprietary bits. If I can customise it without asking Nokia's permission, then you're right. If you need a certificate or fingerprint or Lord know what to change some options, then I am vindicated and they will be using Linux exclusively as a politically correct marketing weapon. Re-match in 2-3 months, once I buy the N900 here in Belgium.

Comment We are talking of the same Nokia, yes indeed (Score 1, Redundant) 307

by GeneralSunTzu (#29323633) Attached to: Nokia Fears Carriers May Try To Undermine N900
I am. Their business model is based on locked down symbian (the open source is to let kids play, not for real-life) and Windows Mobile. Allow me to doubt of their good intentions. And yes I have tried to hack their "open source symbian". It's hard as hell! You a Nokia fanboy, by any chance?

Comment Nokia isn't a FOSS software firm... (Score 0, Flamebait) 307

by GeneralSunTzu (#29323321) Attached to: Nokia Fears Carriers May Try To Undermine N900
Pal, when I will see Nokia selling anything open and hackable I will believe it. So far they keep sleeping with the Microsoft suits and you cannot hack their crappy software without lots of efforts. BTW, I am considering the HTC Hero, not the Dream, as it is running Android, though customised. The N900 will probably be as locked up as any other crap sold by Nokia... Recent E71 Nokia victim

Comment Re:Why is this important to non-Italians (Score 1) 153

by GeneralSunTzu (#28591607) Attached to: Free Wi-Fi For the Residents of Venice, Italy
Then you might consider having a read of contemporary European philosophers: I do not recall a single contemporary one making this point.
Should you wish to state that individualism is king in the US (and in the UK, the branch office), of course you're right.
I used to teach my US students in Texas that the word "solidarity" appears by mistake in the Merriam-Webster...
Maybe we're veering a bit OT, but I cannot resist advising to look up this guy on Wikipedia: "Geert Hofstede".
He made a seminal study on culture characteristics and developed a number of conclusions, interesting if you do not take them as absolute truths.

Comment Re:Why is this important to non-Italians (Score 1) 153

by GeneralSunTzu (#28588235) Attached to: Free Wi-Fi For the Residents of Venice, Italy
Buddy, we live in different worlds...
1. "If Italians are forced to pay for the system with taxes..." standard defence. The difference is Europeans think, to different extents, that the state has to supply some services, not just jail pushers.
2. Ever heard of Buddhism? Wikipedia is free...
3. May I recommend reading some basic textbook on "humour, sense of"? I was poking fun at ourselves, geeks.
Try to tell a geek he should see Venice and he'll shrug and get back to his on-line game or whatever.
Tell him that there is the additional benefit of free WiFi, and maybe he'll come...
And as to those mentioning tourist traps, oversold tourist spots and mixed complaints.
Folks, there are people who get Venice and people who don't.
Machu Picchu, the Hermitage, the Louvre, the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City, are in the same situation.
Italy is not better than elsewhere. It is different, though. If you don't agree, it's all right - am on my third zen book. I will not lose sleep over it.
BTW, I write "him" because I never knew a geekette, in thirty-more years as an IT professional, much as I understand there are some over there (and even some real good ones, like Gina Trapani of Lifehacker.com fame; I don't even talk to people who do not know her...).

Comment Why is this important to non-Italians (Score 5, Insightful) 153

by GeneralSunTzu (#28584771) Attached to: Free Wi-Fi For the Residents of Venice, Italy
It is important to non-Italians because: 1. it shows Americans that you can get something for free, much to their utter dismay, given the tenets of their society; 2. proves to non-Italians that local authorities do have a purpose in the general path of the Wheel; 3. provides to nerds and geeks of all over the world a reasonable pretext to visit Venice, one of the magic places on the planet That, for me, is enough.

Comment Europe, Europe do you copy? (Score 1) 229

by GeneralSunTzu (#28087191) Attached to: Where To Buy A Machine With Linux Pre-Installed
I know European posters are a minority, but I wonder whether anybody has a better list than the hopelessly outdated TuxMobile one. Googling around has provided me with a couple of resellers in Germany, four in the UK and three in France. The French should have it easier, because there you can ask to take Win down and lower the price of the box (consumer protection legislation), if Sarkozy didn't change that already, to help his pals... Come on folks, any European vendors' list?
Operating Systems

Submission + - The Leopard Windows API Myth (roughlydrafted.com)

Submitted by DECS
DECS writes: Some ideas just won't die. Proponents of the Mac OS X Leopard Windows API Myth are so convinced that Apple desperately needs to wedge Microsoft Windows into Mac OS X that they'll run with any hint that might suggest a plausible way for this to happen. The latest take on the subject is that Mac OS X Leopard loads PE files and requests Windows DLL files, which more than a few pundits have determined must be a new development because Tiger didn't do this. Therefore, they've decided that the only sensical conclusion to jump to is that Apple is secretly implementing the Windows API so that Macs will be able to run Windows programs natively. They're wrong, here's why.
PE U: The Mac OS X Leopard Windows API Myth
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Why intelligence agencies should hire Gameplayers? (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
raptorialis
raptorialis writes: "There is a part of our brain called the "reptilian cortex" that enables human beings to react to attacks by external predators. It is this part that helped our ancestors deal with fight or flight responses to attacks by sabre tooth tigers, tyranasaurs and the like. In todays modern society this part of our brain is rarely activated. Whilst we are expected to deal with ever greater complexity, which creates new forms of stress and anxiety, we rarely have need to call upon the reptilian cortex. Soliders in battles, firefighters, the Police and the like will know it only too well, but to the general public, it is entirely foreign. In an ideal world, there is little need for citizens to have a highly developed "reptilian brain". In an ideal world we don't want our citizens to have to be responding to terrorising events and shocking scenes. In an ideal world, we want our citizens to rely on us to protect them and for them to get on with their lives, their businesses and their hopes for the future. Problem comes when you realise that we don't live in an ideal world. In fact such a world does not exist. Never did — never will? Then what? One ethical answer to this problem is to recruit young people into the intelligence and security services who have particularly well developed reptilian brains. Young people who have for many years been conditioned to respond to external threat. Young people who know how to deal with adversity and who each and every day solve problems associated with uncertainty. Young people who know what it is like to play victim and more importantly to undertake a predatory role. The role playing video game — shootem-up superstars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you represent a company and you want to hire field officers, sales people and the like — look to the end of their Resume — where it says other interests! You never know you just might have a world champion reptilian in your midst!"

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